Dear All
One of the diamonds of South Asia is Sain Zahur...
Sain Zahur Ahmad (Urdu: سائیں ظہور) (born circa 1937) is a leading Sufi musician from Pakistan. He has spent most of his life singing in Sufi shrines, and didn't produce a record until 2006, when he was nominated for the BBC World Music awards based on word of mouth.He emerged as the "best BBC voice of the year 2006", Sain is not his first name but a Sindhi honorific title.
Born in the Okara district of the Sahiwal region in the province of Punjab, Pakistan, Zahur was the youngest child in a rural peasant family. He is said to have started singing at the age of five and from that early age, he had dreamed of a hand beckoning him towards a shrine.
He left home at the age of ten, roaming the Sufi shrines of Sindh, Punjab, making a living through singing. Zahur claims that as he was walking past a small shrine in the south Punjab town of Uch Sharif (known for its Sufi traditions), when "someone waved at me with his hand, inviting me in, and I suddenly realised that it was this hand which I saw in my dream."
Although Zahoor is illiterate he is known for his memory of song lyrics; mostly he sings compositions of the major Sufi poets, Bulleh Shah, Shah Badakhshi, Muhammad Qadiri and others...
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